on Indian culture including extensive commentaries and translations ofancient Indian scriptures, on literature and poetry including the writing of much spiritual poetry.

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Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future included the appearance of what we may a call a new species,the supramental being, a divine being which would be as different and superior to present humanity as humanity is to the animal. It would have a consciousness different in kind than the mind of the human, a different status and quality and functioning. Even the physical form of this being would be different, more luminous and flexible and adaptable, entirely conscious and harmonious. Between this supramental being and humanity, there would be transitional beings, who would be human in birth and form, but whose consciousness would approach that of the supramental being. These transitional beings would appear prior to that of the full supramental being, and would constitute an intermediate stage in the earth evolution, through which the soul would pass in its growth towards its divine manifestation as the supramental being in the earth nature.

KW - If you take Sri Aurobindo's consciousness stages as a point of comparison—he has about ten or eleven—what he calls “higher mind” would be equivalent to what Spiral Dynamics would call second tier, or yellow and turquoise. But above higher mind there is illumined mind, then intuitive mind, then overmind, then supermind, and then satchitananda, the ever-present oneness. There are at least four or five stages up there that are higher than second tier. So second tier is sometimes referred to as “integral” only because it's more integral than first tier. But these higher stages will be even more integral, all the way to satchitananda, which is like superintegral, including everything.

AC -Yes, absolute integration.KW - Exactly. We could use the term “third tier” for whatever stages are higher than second tier—illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind, and supermind, for example, as actual, permanent developmental stages. But the thing about second tier is that it's a great base camp for all higher development. If you don't have a really good foundation there, when you get to these higher stages, they won't stick very well.

I would suggest that the consciousness stages are analagous to the various stages of needing to overcome the forces of nature - including gravity - on our travel to the stars as we search for the Holy Grail of consciousness supreme -Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future - and that the transitional beings best begin the journey in a hot air balloon rather than in a Hughes helicopter.

Which does of course raise the issue of an appropriate transcend & include vehicle for continuing the journey. The 'conveyor belt' spoken about by Andrew Cohen & Ken Wiber - could provide the basisfor this vehicle but - NOT one conveyor belt for every religion - butthe same conveyor belt customised for every perspective of RELIGION,POLITICS & SCIENCE - an appropriate mechanism of implementation in fact.

IF only the political development of the sub-continent of India had followed Aurobindo’s understanding of the superior culture of his birth rather than that which followed the colonial grip of the British !!! ???

IT WAS of course Aurobindo’s ”bodhisattva-like” decision to enter politics thus seeking to appropriately put into the practice of ACTION what he preached, for the benefit of ALL the peoples of India, that singled him out amongst the whole gamut of spiritual teachers, pandits and gurus, which Albert has referred to elsewhere, whose primary purpose was & remains, seemingly, to get by as a result of teaching the word rather than ACTING upon it.

Aurobindo’s rare degree of spiritual independence made him a ”man of his time” in the context of Indian unilateralism, but so also is each and every individual of the human race, whose time is independent of but equally interdependent on, the time of all all other individuals of our species.

Yes.teaching is good. As Don reminds and no research has proved until now is the establishment of third tier stages. Andrew promised a new book this autumn. Drawing on decades of community with his most advanced students.

Tough research and cross-verification is needed … NOT JUST in the context of what we have been discussing but in ALL areas of concern as sub-sets of the “WHOLE”istic solution design that we seek.

The recent melamine scandal in China comes to mind, and reminds me of TIMES gone by when Mao Tse-tung “convinced” the Chinese to turn from rice to wheat production, with ALL its devastating consequences, as a result of LACK of ANY research, tough or otherwise, and cross-verification.

Equally in more recent times the Chinese have been encouraged to breed cows for milk production and consumption by the people of China, when it has only just been realised that the vast majority of the children are genetically lactose intolerant.

As Mandela declared to Don Beck AFTER the successful introduction of spiral dynamic understanding to the “transition process’ from apartheid in South Africa, and Mandela’s refusal to continue in alignment with that understanding

"You may call it a moral compass, but that is a mental construction or set of rules whether defined and stated, or undefined but understood. What is really missing is not so much something moral but what Sri Aurobindo and The Mother call the psychic or soul.

The psychic is the inner compass that works not by rules or agreed ideas,

but by a vibrational action as a filter on human action.

Sri Aurobindo stated that a complete sincerity demands that the whole being is unified around the psychic centre. The psychic can lead the transformation of the being more surely even than the awakening to the consciousness of the Oneness in All. It lets one know when a decision or an action is not in unity with the psychic by a profound sense of uneasyness. It is perfectly possible to meet beings who have had that Oneness awakening and made all sorts of spiritual realisations (or mental simulacrams of them) but are not unified around their psychic centre and are capable of action that is very egoistic, often by a glorified and magnified spiritual ego.

No transformation of the kind we aspire to - that would really create a world more

founded upon truth and living in truth - is possible without that psychic change